


The Ashes

by papofglencoe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 22:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3746521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papofglencoe/pseuds/papofglencoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Peeta returns to Katniss in District 12 following his release from the Capitol.</p>
<p>Canon-compliant. Pre-epilogue. Contains book dialogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ashes

The spade slices through the dirt, and even though the ground is still half-frozen from the winter, and the work is hard, it feels gratifying to be doing something again. For months it was just sitting, talking, waiting. The agony of uselessness. Not knowing what I’d come home to–what home, if any, was left. I’d lay there at night and become overwhelmed by the images running through my mind. The images from the arena, of course. The blood covering my hands and the faces of the dead. Those nightmares are nothing new. Then there are the shiny, false memories that the Capitol used to hijack me. Those are worse–riddled with a senseless terror and panic that chills me to the core. Mutts that slaver over my paralyzed body, threatening to gore me to death. They have human faces, and sometimes they’re even hers. 

I think about my family, the looks they must have had on their faces when the fire tore through them. But the images that torment me the most, that threaten to overwhelm me, are of my last few seconds with her. All I can see when I close my eyes is her face when she begged me to let her go. I can see our broken, shattered selves reflected in each other’s eyes. I can hear the despair rending her into pieces, the way it fractures her voice. That’s when I truly failed her. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t help her. It was my worst betrayal, my greatest failure. Because she deserved my help–everything that she’s done for me and for us. And I was too selfish to let her go. 

So when it became clear to the doctors that I was no longer a threat to myself or anyone else, they agreed to let me come home. They’d helped with the breakdowns, but they couldn’t help with the nightmares, and the longer I stayed in the Capitol, they worse those became. The first thing, the only thing I could think of, was getting back to her. I have to get back to her, to make it up to her somehow, any way that I can. I’ve been burned and broken and ignored and left to die. I’ve been hurt by the people who were supposed to love me. But so has she. And I’ve been part of that. I’ve hurt her, and I was the one who promised to protect her at all costs. I promised my life on it. 

The doctors allowed me to call Haymitch on numerous occasions–or at least to try–but he seldom answers the phone. When he does, he’s so inebriated he’s unintelligible. I haven’t been able to get any answers or help from him, and if he can’t handle two minutes on the phone with me, then I know he’s been of no use to her. The doctors told me her mom was in District 4. And Gale? Well, I’ve seen him on Capitol TV. He’s got some security consulting job in District 2, but I know that’s not what keeps him away, not really. I don’t think he can bear to look at her after what happened, and if he’s not with her then she can’t bear to see him either.

Alone then. She has been completely alone in this graveyard. In this place covered with ash and mud and the exposed bones of the dead. I dig faster, as if to bury each and every one.

***

When I stepped off the hovercraft in the dusky morning, it took me several moments to realize where I was. The square had been obliterated beyond recognition, the Justice Building crumbling into rubble. Once I got my bearings, I walked past the spot where my family’s bakery used to be. All that’s left of the white clapboard building is the skeleton of the foundation and some collapsed rafters, all charred black from the heat of the firebombs. There’s broken glass littered throughout the yard, and I step carefully around it to walk to the gnarled stump in the ground where I had thrown her the bread. 

The tree’s resilient roots grasp into the soil around it, clutching the dirt like the desperate fingers of a dying man. I don’t know where the bodies of my family are, but as I enter the meadow I pass an open mass grave. I hope that they’re already in it, that they’ve been put to rest. I don’t look any further for them. I can’t do anything for them anyway. I can’t do anything about the dead or the ashes of my district. But there is one thing that I can do for her. However insignificant it might be. 

The idea came to me one night when I was tossing and turning, fretful and covered in a cold sweat, and as I walk into the meadow, I ask one of the gravediggers if I can borrow a shovel and wheelbarrow. I don’t recognize his face, but his gray eyes tell me he’s from the Seam, or what used to be the Seam. The skin on his face sags from fatigue, and he smells of filth and soot. He nods solemnly at me, hands me the shovel, and just says, “Welcome back.” He wipes a grimy hand across his forehead, wiping away the sweat and replacing it with coal-black dirt, and then returns to his task. 

It takes me a few hours in the woods to find what I am looking for. 

*** 

The repetitive motion and rhythmic sound of the metal shifting the dirt lulls me into a trance, and when I detect motion out of the corner of my eye, I’m startled. My instinct is to flinch, and my body freezes in place. I breathe, forcing myself to relax. I turn my head, and she’s there. Frozen in place, too. I don’t know how long she’s been standing there, but she looks surprised to see me. I flush involuntarily at the sight of her, but I force myself to hold eye contact, to be brave about what happens next.

I’ve gone over this moment a thousand times in my head, rehearsing what I wanted to say to her. I don’t know how to begin–there’s just too much that’s happened–and everything I practiced and rehearsed melts away into nothingness the minute I lock eyes with her. There’s a void between us filled with everything and nothing, and it makes my body ache. I want to walk headlong into that void and draw her in with me. It’s unbearable. I focus on her gray eyes, ringed with dark circles from grief and exhaustion and hopelessness, but still impossibly compelling and beautiful to me.

She breaks the silence first, and for that I’m thankful. Small mercies. 

“You’re back,” she says. 

There’s nothing accusatory or disgusted in her tone, and I let out a sigh of relief. I had been worried that she wouldn’t want to see me, that the sight of me would only inspire invective or sorrow. But instead she’s asking something, and I feel the need to answer her. 

“Dr. Aurelius wouldn’t let me leave the Capitol until yesterday.”

That’s it. Of all the things I can say, that’s what comes out of my mouth. I want to tell her that I am back, that I’ve salvaged some part of myself and put down the bastard mutt version that the Capitol delivered to her in District 13. That I’m never going to hurt her. That I’m here to stay for as long as she wants me here. That she can count on me and, fuck, that I’m sorry I wasn’t here all along like I should have been, like I promised. That I will spend the rest of whatever is left of my life making it up to her. But it’s too overwhelming. Besides, this moment isn’t about me or my guilt, so I swallow all the words that threaten to spill out. I choke down all the things I desperately want to tell her. 

I focus on the tangible, the tiny, measurable steps that I can take to cross the void between us. I add, “By the way, he said to tell you he can’t keep pretending he’s treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone.”

She breaks eye contact and looks down at the ground, listlessly kicking at a clump of dirt with her boots, and that’s when I finally take in the sight of her, the whole wretched spectacle. She’s a broken shell, her already tiny frame shrunken and withered. She looks starved, like the little girl I once threw bread to a lifetime ago. She’s wearing her leather hunting jacket, and beneath it are the scrubs the Capitol gave her, unwashed and grayed from constant wear. Her clothes hang on her, several sizes too big, and I can see the sharp lines of her collarbone poking above the collar of her shirt. Her hair is matted in clumps, hanging limply around her face. Her normally olive skin is pallid, and her cheekbones look like razors threatening to burst the skin apart. It doesn’t look like she’s eaten or slept in weeks. Before me stands a girl drowning underwater, a girl hunted by demons.

I notice the pink ribbon scars winding around her neck, and I unwillingly think about how I put my hands around it, tried to strangle every last breath out of her. I remember her wheezing and gasping for air, how her skin felt in my hands. Her neck looks so tiny, so fragile, that I’m overcome with shame and frown at the memory. 

She must have seen me looking at her neck because she assumes a defensive posture, crossing her arms in front of her protectively. I’d worry that she was terrified of me if I weren’t certain she’d welcome death. She backs a step away from me, pushing a clump of hair off her face. She’s flushed all of a sudden, and she seems agitated. Petulant even. This isn’t how I wanted it to go. I don’t want to anger her or frighten her or remind her of the memories we can’t escape. 

Quickly, I regroup my wits. I look away and resume my work to put her at ease. The strategy works, because soon I hear her approaching me. With every step she takes toward me my heart pounds faster in my chest. I’m blushing and anxious, and my palms are sweating, so I stop digging to focus on breathing, just like the doctors suggested. I use the shovel as a prop, gripping its handle and leaning against it to take weight off my prosthetic leg. I look into her eyes again and just breathe. I breathe and focus on their cool depths. It helps.

She glances at the wheelbarrow with the primrose bushes and asks hesitantly, almost suspiciously, “What are you doing?” She looks back at me, her eyebrows knitted in thought, demanding an answer. 

“I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her. I thought we could plant them along the side of the house.”

I choose my words carefully, saying as much as I conceal in equal parts. My words tell her that this is the first thing I wanted to do when I got home. They tell her that I care about Prim’s death, too, that she’s not alone in her grief. They tell her that I haven’t done this to create a sense of obligation in her, that I care without expectation. Then, there are the crafty evasions. “The house” is a neutral enough way to describe the place I consider home–because it’s her home, and she, for reasons I can’t explain, is mine. I don’t remind her that my house was incinerated in the bombing and that, unless she invites me to stay with her, I’m stuck rooming with Haymitch. I don’t tell her the most important thing, that hope is never really lost.

I watch her as she looks at the bushes again, recognition dawning on her face. She nods hurriedly, then reaches out and takes my right hand. She holds it for a second, applying the slightest pressure to thank me, and then she turns and walks back into the house without another word.

After she’s left and I’m alone again, I flex my hand. It’s tingling from her touch, and the familiarity of the sensation washes over me. Whatever is left of me, whatever is left of her, there is still that. I continue my task, planting each of the five shrubs in a perfect line along the house. I find myself humming quietly under my breath, and it makes me smile. 

It was the perfect start, after all.

***

I spend the rest of my day with Haymitch, trying to get him to eat to dull the effects of the white liquor. He’s so full of alcohol that he’s likely to burst into flames if anyone strikes a match near him. I tidy up his house for him, bake some bread. We don’t talk much, but it’s good to see him. To pass the time in companionable silence with someone who understands how you’re feeling and who feels that way, too. 

It’s about ten in the evening when I tell him I’m going to swing by her place to see how she’s doing. 

Haymitch smirks, “Don’t hurry back on my account, boy. I’m doing just fine here.” He holds up a bottle of liquor and swishes it in my direction. I pat him on the shoulder as I walk out the door, closing it behind me. He’ll be passed out within the hour, so he makes a valid point.

When I enter her house, it’s pitch-black and silent, except for the faint ticking of the clock in the kitchen. There are no lights on, and there’s no fire in the grate either, so I assume she’s in bed and turn around to leave when I hear a sound in the living room. It sounds like mewling, the soft bawling of an animal. I walk toward it. 

Then I see her, a small ball curled up on the hardwood floor. She’s asleep, with the cat–how did it get here?–lying near her on the hearth rug. I crouch beside her and can see through the darkness the tear streaks lining her face. She’s crying in her sleep, her hands balled into fists. Her breath is fitful, and her chest shudders as she exhales. This won’t do. Carefully, so I don’t disturb her, I scoop her up and carry her upstairs to her room, the cat following closely at my heels. She buries her face in the crook of my neck, and I can feel the wetness of her tears, the heat of her breath, against my skin. I’m worried that the pounding in my chest will wake her, but it seems to have the opposite effect. 

I nudge the door open with my foot and gently deposit her onto the bed. She’s changed clothes since our meeting this morning, and her hair looks freshly washed. She smells of mint and clover, and it conjures memories that the Capitol couldn’t touch. Memories that they didn’t know about because there was no visual cue for them, like the way she smelled cuddled against me in the night or the sweet, fresh taste of her kisses. I pull the quilted comforter over her and pause to take in the sight of her sleeping. She looks so innocent, all the pain washed away, and I remember our nights on the train, watching her as she slept and feeling like I could float away if only I knew how she felt.

I’m about to leave, pulling the door shut behind me from the hall, when I hear her murmur something in her sleep. I walk back into the room in time to hear her murmur it again. 

“Peeta?”

Her eyes are closed, her voice so quiet it’s almost inaudible. The sound of my name is indistinct, blurred from unconsciousness. 

I approach her, stop next to the bed, and ask, “Yeah?”

She doesn’t register my response, doesn’t know that I’m really here. She’s dreaming, talking to some version of me from some corner of her mind. I can’t reach her there.

“Peeta?” she says again. And then, “Will you stay with me?”

I look around the darkened room. There’s an old rocking chair in the corner, so I pick it up and place it next to the bed. I sit and pause for a fraction of a second and then take her hand in mine. Gently, so as not to wake her, I kiss the top of her hand. Her skin is cool and soft, and the feel of it against my lips makes my heart thrum with joy. I whisper, my lips still against her hand, “Always.” And then I allow myself to say her name. “Katniss.” It is a reward for good behavior, a small token of self-forgiveness.

I place her hand back on the bed. I don’t know when, but my eyes close, and at some point I fall asleep. The sleep is sound, and when I awake in the early hours of the dawn I feel better rested than I have in months. She’s still sleeping on the bed, and so I quietly return the chair to its place in the corner and leave. 

I’ll be back later in the morning with some bread. And, day by day, I’ll convince her to hope again. Only then can I begin to forgive myself, to build a life from all these ashes.


End file.
